Pit Pat Putt: a pronunciation game for practising vowel sounds

I found this pronunciation game on The Internet TESL Journal, it’s a great way of drawing attention to, and practising, vowel sounds.

How to play

You will need a list of ten one syllable words that begin and end with the same consonant. Here are some example sets. Choose a set that includes the vowel sounds that the class or student has a particular problem with.

Pit Pat Put Putt Port Pert Part Pet Pot Pete

Cut Court Cute Cat Kit Cot Cart Coat Kite Coot Kurt

But Bet Bat Bit Bought Bait Beat Bite Bot Boat But Bert

Ten Tan Ton Tune Teen Tone Torn Turn Tin Tyne

Write the numbers 0 to 9 across the board and underneath each number write one of the words.

0 1 2 3…

Bet Bat But Beat…

Drill the words with the class until the students can recognise and reproduce the different sounds.

Tell the class that you are now going to give them your telephone number.

Read out your number, but instead of giving them the actual number, give them the word that represents the number as you have written it on the board. Repeat the sequence once or twice and then ask the class what they think your number is. Point out any mistakes and do more drilling practice if needed.

Now, ask students to make up their own seven-digit telephone number and then write it down along with its respective word.

E.g. 0 Bet, 1 But, 4 Bat, 2 Bite, 5 Beat, 0 Bet, 9 Bert

Students now give their number to their partner(s) using the symbolic words, the partner transcribing what they think is the correct number. Students then compare their number strings and identify where any errors were made.

Have students change partners and repeat the activity as many times as is necessary.

5 thoughts on “Pit Pat Putt: a pronunciation game for practising vowel sounds”

I’ve tried this with a couple of groups and it works really well. We also extended it to other difficult words such as, leaf, live, leave and life…. and other consonant ends b, t d and p for an intermediate group to cover all the letters in the alphabet. Using song titles as the game…. it worked really well. My song was Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious….